


Wave Goodbye Already!

by gardnerhill



Series: Bodie and Doyle (Deceased) [1]
Category: Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969), The Professionals
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Historical References, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:59:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Technically, this is a death story. Technically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wave Goodbye Already!

Agent 7.2 – also known as Franklin Jameson, 2-month member of CI5 – kept himself rigidly at attention before Cowley's desk, feeling the blue ice-picks run him through where The Old Man was sitting.

“So you ran down a blind alley by yourself without calling for your backup, pursuing a gun-runner with a history of violent acts longer than your arm, never thinking that you might be getting set up for an ambush,” Cowley said sharply. “I will not tolerate stupidity on my squad, 7.2. The only thing you would have accomplished would be to deplete my force by one more member.”

“Yes sir,” Jameson said, eyes forward, hands behind his back.

“I lost two good agents in an ambush five months ago,” Cowley snapped. “They were my best team – and they were cornered and shot like rabbits. It took ten men to do it, and they killed four of the ten during the firefight – but they were dead at the end.” Cowley pierced the young man again with his stare. “Do you understand me, laddie? Being good will not save you.”

“Yes sir,” Jameson whispered. All new agents were told about the deaths on duty of CI5 agents, to let them know what they were in for.

“I am letting you stay in CI5,” Cowley continued, never letting up on his stare at the discomfited agent. “The usual penalty for a stupid mistake on the job is death – but by some miracle you have been spared. I will accept that as warning enough to trust that it will prevent you from repeating your stupidity a second time.”

“It will, sir.” Jameson fidgeted a little.

Cowley grunted in acknowledgment. He ran a hand over the top of his head and muttered, more to himself than to Jameson, “What I cannot understand is why you are still alive, and not even wounded, when there were four gunman waiting to kill you.”

“Sir?” When Jameson had the full attention of the CI5 controller he said, “I – I wasn't alone in that alley. There were other agents there with me. I think.”

“Explain that statement.” Words made of ice.

“Sir...Sir, I heard voices in the alley. I heard them all around the alley, hiding. Agents, I think, but I'd never heard their voices before. They shouted to the men to drop their guns, and the men did. But they never came out of hiding.”

That unnerving blue gaze never left Jameson. “Continue.”

“Well, sir, they told me to cuff the men, said they had them all covered. And I did.” The full story... “Then...one of the gunmen got the drop on me, tripped me. He grabbed an iron bar like he was going to smash my head – and just then, just then sir! this box of rubbish fell on him from above. Must have been heavy, it knocked him out.” Jameson drew a shaky breath. “You're right, sir, it was a miracle that saved me. And those agents. They never came out to help me. They said they couldn't show themselves. They said to tell you to give regards to Susie. They knew me, they used my name, but I didn't recognize their voices.”

The look on Cowley's face was hard to define. Sudden understanding as his face cleared, of course, but why the look of anger? Jameson waited as Cowley sat with that look on his face.

When Cowley finally spoke, his voice was his usual sharp tone, but there was a thread of something else running through it. “Yes, 7.2, I know who they are. It satisfactorily explains to me why you were not killed.” The Scot kept the young agent skewered with his blue-eyed glare. “You are not to speak of this incident to anyone else – this blunder would make you look extremely foolish to the other agents. You are not to speak of the hidden agents you heard.”

“Yes sir.” Jameson was relieved. No fear of him telling the others – they'd lose their awe at his single-handed capture of Ballters and four ambushers. Those hidden men must be special agents, deeper even than CI5, answerable only to Cowley.

“It will be in your best interest to forget both the incident and this conversation,” Cowley said. He handed a small folder to Jameson. “You have 30 minutes to report to Macklin for a refresher course. You will be let go when he says you are ready.”

The Blond Inquisitor... But Jameson took the folder. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply, and was dismissed from Cowley's office. Once out, he ran. Half an hour to change and report, or he'd be doing calisthenics in his suit. Macklin was a cruel fate – but far better than the death he'd stared in the face this morning, death only averted by those hidden agents. How had they known where to hide?

***

Cowley sat in his empty office, shaking his head. He exhaled mightily. “Doyle. Bodie.”

His office echoed with the silence of those long dead.

“4.5, 3.7,” Cowley snapped. “I know you're in here.”

“Sorry, sir.” Bodie's voice didn't sound a bit sorry. “Just thought you were reminiscing about old friends.”

“No time for that nonsense, 3.7.” There was nothing to glare at, so Cowley glared straight ahead. “Both of you listened in on this conversation, didn't you?”

“Well, we were both in your office,” Doyle's voice sounded defensive.

“And you didn't specifically ask us to stay outside while you gave Jameson the earful,” Bodie said in his smuggest tone.

“I am not in the habit of asking dead agents to stay out of my office!”

That was Ray Doyle's suppressed snicker.

Cowley glared around the room, hoping they might get the idea. “Neither of you has a right to interfere with my new recruits! Most especially not to hold their hands on missions!”

“Jameson's good,” Doyle said. “We've seen him in action. He's too good to lose two months into his stint.”

“Sir, it was his first mistake,” Bodie added. “He'll learn.”

Cowley nodded slightly. “Bodie. It was you that threw that box at the gunman, wasn't it?”

“I made it look like it fell, didn't I?” Bodie said defensively. “What was I supposed to do, let Jameson get his brains knocked out?”

“Our fault they got the drop on Jameson that time,” Doyle added. “We scared the poor sod silly, and he dropped his guard for a second.”

“I have no idea why.” Cowley's voice dripped with sarcasm. He laced his fingers together and exhaled again. “Bodie. Doyle. When you spoke to me on my way home after the funeral...”

“And nearly gave you a coronary,” Doyle added.

Cowley continued, relentless. “...I agreed to let you continue your work on the conditions that you reported only to me and did not interfere with the other agents. I cannot let you go on the way you have been these past months.” He reached for another file in his folder and drew it out. “I have been compiling a list of complaints against you by the other agents.”

“Complaints!” Doyle yelped.

“The ungrateful bastards!” Bodie snarled. “What about all the times we pinpointed hidden people for them, or let other agents know where they were when they were hurt and couldn't respond?”

“Or corralling, like today?” Doyle fumed. “Saved Jameson's bacon.”

“Which does not explain, Doyle, why female agents have been complaining of feeling spied upon in the locker room and bathroom.”

There was a moment of silence, then Doyle's ominous “Bodie...”

“What, what?” The agent's voice was the tone of false innocence.

“3.7, that is sexual harassment!” Cowley snapped.

“Just reminiscing,” Bodie said sadly. “Can't do bugger all about it any more...”

“You are creating an uncomfortable work environment for your colleagues, 3.7,” Cowley pressed on, as dogged as ever he had been with the recalcitrant agents when they had been alive. “Continue to interfere with agents' personal privacy, and your assistance will no longer be welcome.”

“As if you could stop me from lending a hand,” Bodie muttered.

“No, I cannot stop you, 3.7. But I can refuse to react to you. I can act as if you are not speaking to me, for as long as you wish to be ignored.”

The silence really was deathly for a moment. That was a heavy threat – there had always been a special link between Bodie and the Cow. The only living man in the room knew his threat would be taken seriously.

Cowley continued, reading from his notes. “Materializing in the rest room late at night and frightening agents on late watch. Doyle, there's a special notation here...”

“Being dead is bloody boring at times, Cowley,” Ray said defensively. “Just having a bit of fun.”

“Pulling off your head and throwing it at people is not 'having a bit of fun,' 4.5,” Cowley snapped.

“Got Murphy to wet himself, didn't I?” Doyle, gleeful and unrepentant. “I bet Bodie I could make Murph piss his pants, and I won!”

Bodie snickered. “Laughed so hard we nearly puked. Murph wanted to kill us. Too bad someone beat 'im to it.”

“Yes, this particular complaint comes from 6.2. It is as well for you that Murphy has a strong heart, or he might be with you right now taking his revenge in person.” Cowley shuffled the paper and adjusted his glasses again. “I'm not done, either of you. Here's another one – writing scurrilous comments about various agents' undergarments on the rest room walls.”

“Now that could be anyone, Sir!” Bodie said, outraged.

“I doubt that other agents use green glowing ink to write their comments – comments that fade away in a week and don't leave traces,” Cowley said dryly. “Except for a lingering smell of bananas.”

“That's Jungle Fluorescent Ecto-Trace, all right,” Doyle said, sounding disgusted. “Bodie, I told you to go for lilac.”

“Knowledge should be freely shared, Mr. Cowley,” Bodie said. “And be honest – you'd never have pegged Macklin for Mickey Mouse boxers, would you?”

“First time anyone's ever caught him changing – and now we know why,” Doyle added, chuckling.

“And that entire week that message was on the wall, Macklin nearly worked a group of recruits to death to make up for all the comments, overheard or not,” Cowley said sternly.

“There! Probably the fittest lads you've ever accepted, Sir,” Bodie said. “Did you a big favor.”

“Macklin still wears 'em, too,” Doyle smirked. “So we didn't damage that poor tender lad's psyche.”

“AHEM.” Cowley continued reading from his list. “Matchmaking.”

“No law against that, sir,” Bodie said stiffly. “Just whispering a few suggestions in people's ears.”

“You still upset 'cos Susan went out with Jax? Or just 'cos they hit it off?” Doyle made a tsk-tsk'ing sound. “Didn't peg you for a Race Purity idiot, Cowley. Not like the Klansman here.”

“Now just one bloody minute, Doyle!” Bodie snapped. “I've never said a thing to Jax about his bloody skin color!”

“Not in his hearing, anyway...”

“The social affairs of the living members of this department are neither of your business,” Cowley cut in before the sparring could escalate. “Your duties do not include arranging social interplay.”

“Aw, have a heart, Cowley,” Bodie pleaded. “We can't do anything with a bird but look at her these days. This is the closest we can come to dating any more.”

Cowley lifted an eyebrow. “There are no dead women there?”

“Dead anybody!” That was Doyle. “We're the only ghosts we've seen so far!”

“Odd.” Cowley laced his fingers together, elbows on his desk, and rested his lips against them. “And an odd manifestation. Mortals can hear you, but not see you. You are visible to each other, is that correct?”

“Yes sir. Doyle and I see each other clearly.”

There was a shriek. “AHHH! Bodie, you bastard, not in the Cow's office!”

“And we can touch each other,” Bodie added, far too blandly.

Cowley ignored the previous exchange. “Other people have seen you. Murphy, for one,” he said dryly. “And Bodie has given proof that solid matter can be manipulated by you.”

“Yeh, but that's bloody hard work. Takes a lot of energy to make ourselves seen by the living, or to pick up things,” Doyle said.

“Like trying to pick yourself up,” Bodie added. “Ache all over after we've done it.”

“I see. And you have received no indication of other deceased people.”

“No. 'Course, that doesn't mean they aren't out there.” Doyle, introspective as always.

“Yeah, what if they can be smelled, but not seen or heard?” Bodie added. “Or felt? Or seen but not heard?”

“Make an interesting study, it would.”

“Yes, it would, Doyle. It would interest me very much.” Nodding decisively, Cowley snapped the folder shut. “And that is exactly what you two will do for the next six months. Starting now.”

“What?” both of them yelped.

“Cowley, you can't do that!” Doyle snapped back.

“Can't I, Doyle?” Cowley looked around him with his best glare, hoping it struck his target. “Jameson may let something slip about the voices. Until he is well and truly a member of CI5, I do not want him knowing about you two. Six months. No more help for six months, especially not to 7.2.”

“No fear,” Bodie said. “We handled his first mistake. Second one's on him.”

“And no help for anyone else,” Cowley added. “I don't want any collaboration of Jameson's story. No call-ins, no tips, no voice-cornering. No miraculously-working RTs. No pinpoint locating of suspects. You are to lie low.”

“Can't lie any lower than the grave.”

“Bodie...”

“I see death hasn't evaporated your phenomenally sick sense of humor, 3.7,” Cowley said calmly. “I am not letting you go. I am merely sending both of you on an assignment to gather intelligence for CI5.” He gave a wry grin. “Perhaps, at the end of that time, you may want to try something else with your status than continue your agent work. But if you do, come to me before you make your permanent plans. As I told you both, the day of the funeral,” and this time Cowley's grin was full of iron, “death does not release you.”

***

“Six bloody months!” Doyle snarled, shoving his hands into the pockets of his ragged jacket and furiously striding through a lamp-post, not bothering to wipe the trickle of blood down his nose from the bullet hole in his forehead. He was used by now to his impermeance – and being forced to wear the blood-stained and bullet-torn clothes in which he had died.

“You gave him the idea, Ray,” Bodie said, infuriatingly calm as always.

Doyle shot his partner a glare that had lost none of its toxicity with death. Sometimes he couldn't help resenting the way Bodie had come out of their last firefight.

Bodie had gotten a single bullet straight in the heart that had felled him immediately; surrounded with nowhere to hide, Ray had stood savage guard over his friend's body, shooting Bodie's killers one after the other as the stinging pain thudded into him here, there... The final blow, slamming between his eyes like a brick, had staggered him backwards – into strong arms that caught him before he could fall. Set firmly on his feet again, he stared down at two crumpled corpses, then turned to look as an equally bemused Bodie let him go and made a cursory attempt to brush the blood off his phantom clothing. They stood and looked around the alley as the rest of CI5 came thundering down the alley to corner the surviving killers. “You got four of them, sunshine,” Bodie had said quietly, a hand on Doyle's shoulder as the enormity of what had just happened to them registered. “Not bad.”

Ray's clothing had been torn up and saturated with blood in the massacre; the bullet-hole between his eyes that oozed blood whenever he got angry or exerted himself did nothing to improve his appearance. While both sets of clothing bore the imprints of how they'd last been worn, Bodie's black poloneck neatly hid the large bloodstain around the single hole over his heart. Trust Bodie to maintain his dapper appearance – even if the only one who could see him now was Doyle.

The only one...

“Why are we the only ones?” Ray said aloud, the idea beginning to intrigue him again, the question he'd asked Bodie rhetorically so many times. “Why haven't we seen any other dead blokes?” He spread his hands, one of which passed through an oblivious pedestrian. “We can't be the only ghosts in England.”

“Unless they're all off haunting castles in the countryside.”

“We're the only ghosts in _London_?” Ray said incredulously.

“Well, we have been busy,” Bodie said. “Not like we've been looking for other ghosts have we?”

“That's true. Time flies when you're having fun.” When the two agents discovered the advantages of being unseeable and tireless, they had spent nearly every time in the months since their last ambush providing extra help for CI5.

“Cheer up, Raymond,” Bodie said blithely, winking at a passing young woman who had the figure to justify the miniskirt she was wearing. “Six month holiday. Let's go looking for the others. Start here, and work our way through the cities.”

Ray thought for a moment, looking back and scowling at the banker who had just walked through him. “Palace first?”

“The Tower,” Bodie said, smiling. “Then the Palace. And from there, who knows?”

***

Anne Boleyn was far too preoccupied with wandering the Tower to notice two mere law-enforcement agents paying their respects to the beheaded monarch. Bodie and Doyle stood where they were on the stairs and watched her breeze past them and through the crowd of chattering American tourists who were completely oblivious to the ghost in their midst. Both agents were torn by conflicting emotions; joy at realizing that other ghosts were, indeed, visible, especially this most famous of specters – and disappointment that she took no notice of them at all.

“Pretty, though,” Bodie said, shaking himself to be rid of the chills caused by the sorrowful, inward-directed stare in the large green eyes of the severed head. They reminded him of another pair of often-sorrowful green eyes. “Can see what the old fart saw in her.”

“I think she's spent too much time by herself,” Doyle muttered, himself discomfited. He stared at his hand that Anne Boleyn had simply walked through when he had held it up to bar her way, the way the pedestrian had walked through it unnoticing; a ghost through a ghost. “Bodie, do you think that'll happen to us? Think we'll wind up wandering the streets of London, not talking to anyone, not reacting – ” He jumped and yelped at the feel of Bodie's hand palming his rear.

“Not as long as we keep each other alert, Doyle,” Bodie said, grinning. The furious glare on Doyle's face was a sublime reward; he had managed to chase the bleak look out of his friend's eyes once again.

Even as Ray snarled at his partner, he knew he couldn't stay angry at him. He would have gladly died alone to save Bodie's life – but he was also achingly grateful that he was not alone in this strange afterlife. With his temperament, he would surely have wound up walking as empty a spirit path as that unhappy queen's within a month after the shooting. Bodie had always been one of the few people who could lift Doyle out of his foul moods.

They were not really surprised to see Anne – she was the great legend of this place, after all, and Ray had to elbow Bodie hard to stop his singing of “With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm” as they moved back down the stairs.

But when Bodie quieted, he stopped on the stairs, letting tourists pass through him without any of his usual pithy commentaries. “Someone's down there, Ray. There's a scratching noise, like someone writing with a bad pen.” He listened, not at all hampered by the loud sounds of the living people in the room. Doyle watched, fascinated. Bodie's sense of hearing had become truly supernatural in his deceased state. “It's a ghost all right, Ray. One ghost, and it's writing something down in the courtyard.”

It was the figure sitting outside on the old platform where the private royal executions had once been held – a middle-aged brown-bearded man in the heavy velvet robes of a royal chancellor from the Tudor era, writing – that was the surprise. He was scratching with a quill pen on sheets of parchment, filling them with lines of neat small writing.

Both men approached the figure. “Excuse me?” Ray asked.

And the man looked up at them and smiled. “Yes?” he asked.

“You can see us! You can hear us!” Bodie whooped.

There was a thin bloody line all the way around the man's neck, indicating a beheading similar to Anne Boleyn's; but his phantom eyes twinkled and he had a pleasant look on his face. “You have come to see people you couldn't see not so long ago?”

Ray laughed and the chancellor laughed too. Bodie grinned. Both men were giddy at the meeting. “I'm Raymond Doyle and this is William Bodie. We've been dead for nearly half a year now, and you're the first ghost we've seen that's noticed us!”

The man nodded, and inclined his head to the Tower. “You have seen Anne, I warrant?”

“Yes!” Bodie said. “But the dear girl didn't seem to see us.”

“Poor Anne. The poor soul.” He set down his quill and parchment sheets in mid-air beside him. “Please, make yourselves welcome.”

Bodie remained standing. Ray sat cross-legged several feet off the ground, eliciting a muttered “Showoff” from his partner. If Bodie could hear things Ray couldn't, Ray could float himself, ghostlike, which Bodie could not.

The Tudor figure continued, indicating the high tower. “Because she willingly involved herself in a marriage against the laws of her God – hers and mine, and the King's – and because my opposition to her marriage resulted in my execution, Anne is doomed to wander the Tower in rueful grief, seeing only her own sorrow, until the day she has forgiven herself for loving the King and for causing my death.”

The light broke over Ray Doyle. “You're Thomas More, aren't you?” he asked. “Or John Fisher?” Bodie stared at his friend, startled at this sudden showing of Doyle's knowledge.

The man smiled and nodded. “I am Thomas More. John Fisher and I were beheaded close together. When Anne was beheaded, we chose to post ourselves as watchers over her until the day she is ready to end her sentence. John Fisher had the idea of us doing so, and I took the first watch. So for a century I sit here, writing, while John Fisher exults in the Kingdom of Heaven; and then John Fisher sits here and writes for a hundred years while I revisit Paradise; and so will we do until Anne releases us. I shall be here until the Year of Our Lord 2036.”

“Then there is a Heaven!” Bodie exclaimed.

“For those who believe,” More said severely, glowering at Bodie for a moment from under his heavy brown eyebrows. This was, after all, a man who had died rather than obey his King in opposition to his beliefs.

Ray shook his head. “Aren't you lonely?”

“By no means, Raymond. I have my writing. I watch the people who come to see the Tower. I greet other wandering souls like yourselves and speak to them until they wish to move on.” Thomas More smiled. “And John Fisher and I send each other letters.”

“But...” Bodie was puzzled. “If he's in Heaven, and you're here, how the he – heck do you send letters?”

“William. John Fisher and I sent each other letters while we were both prisoners in this Tower.” There was reproval in More's voice – and Bodie actually looked abashed. “Not the gates of Heaven nor the curse of the unloved dead can stop our friendship, or our letters.”

“'Other wandering souls!'“ Ray said eagerly. “Other ghosts?”

The bishop nodded. “I have seen them come and go many times whilst in my time of watch over Anne. I do not approve of the changes in clothing this past century.” The bishop glowered at a young woman, whose outfit Bodie had been beaming at seconds earlier.

“We've decided to start looking for others.” Ray looked at More with a hunger. “Can you tell me who they were, or where they have gone?”

“I will tell you what I can. Each human soul I have seen as a ghost, unfailing, has had some unfinished task on Earth,” More said.

The two agents grinned at each other and settled themselves comfortably to listen to Henry VIII's former advisor.

More had been a lawyer, a satirist and essayist as well as a theologian; in fact, his most famous essay had coined the word _utopia_. His understanding of human nature enriched his narrative dealing with the wandering souls he had seen in the sixteenth, eighteenth and twentieth centuries. His stories filled the two men's ears. While they listened, More finished his letter, laid the quill in the air, rolled up the thin sheets of parchment, and the missive sparkled away in his fist – presumably on its way to Heaven. Later on, something shimmered in the air before More like invisible smoke; when More closed his hand on it, revealing a sheaf of parchment bound with a ribbon of pale blue that gave off its own light, and untied it, it proved to be covered with a different handwriting. More set John Fisher's letter aside to be read after his talk with the two men.

More had despaired of the rest of the Tudors; he'd shuddered at Mary's fanatical bloodthirst, had scorned Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth for her imprisonment and execution of Catholics. He had sat with just-executed poachers whose families had been deported to the New World – who had vanished once they sensed their kin safe on land in Virginia – and with sorrowful Iroquois and Africans who had died of smallpox far from their home lands.

More had written long letters to John Fisher about the horrors he had seen during the Blitz, and the spirit and courage shown by his countrymen in the face of that horror – a spirit that had extended even to those killed in the bombing; the ghosts had prowled the debris, looking for the still-living trapped in the rubble and notifying ambulance drivers any way they could. This part fascinated both deceased agents, proof that ghosts manifested to mortals in many different ways – some as disembodied voices like themselves, some visible but not heard, some both, some only sensed on a subconscious level. But all were visible and audible to each other, though not always tactile (as both had learned from Anne Boleyn).

More then asked both men for their stories – no doubt to be relayed to the next homeless spirits who came upon him, and in his next missive to John Fisher. He listened intently as first Doyle then Bodie gave their life histories, and then traded CI5 yarns back and forth. He chuckled at some of the stories, shook his head angrily at others. Their deaths he listened to stoically, a man who had seen many of the evil things humans can do.

Changes in light and dark occurred as Bodie and Doyle listened and spoke. Rain thudded through them the way all solid matter did, without impacting. Hunger and sleepiness were mortal concerns; neither intruded on the pair any more to distract them. By the time they rose to make their goodbyes to Thomas More, a fortnight had passed unnoticed.

“Good luck to you both, and God speed,” More said in farewell. “May you find what you need.” As they left, Bodie looked behind him one more time, and saw More pick up the abandoned letter from John Fisher and settle in to read it with a look of pleasure.

***

“Tasks. Unfulfilled tasks.” Bodie mused. “That seems to be the key to all this.”

“Which doesn't explain us.” Doyle swung a foot through a stone; too much effort to actually kick it right now.

“Course, that's just one spook's point of view, innit?” Bodie added.

“He's seen a lot.”

“Yeah, but only the wandering ones who didn't know which end was up. He's been at the bloody Tower when he isn't with the choir invisible, so he didn't find others happy with their lot. Could be plenty of happy ghosts doing their own jobs right where they are.”

“Mm.” Doyle kept walking, this time concentrating everything on his foot, and managed to skitter a stone. “All right. Chalk one up for Thomas More's theory.”

“Onward and upward.”

***

“This is the place, Ray. I heard a ghost singing to himself in here.”

Ray looked at Bodie, then at the door of the private detective agency. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me? Hello in there! Ghost, are you?”

The man who stepped outside of the office without opening the door was short, stout, black-haired and of a ruddy complexion that fit well with his all-white suit and bow tie. He shook hands with both of them – he felt as solid and real to them as Thomas More had. “Hopkirk. Marty Hopkirk. Delighted to meet you both.” He reached for an inside pocket and pulled out a couple of business cards which he handed to both agents.

Bodie and Doyle looked at the cards, which they had no trouble holding. Plain white, with the caption “Randall and Hopkirk (DECEASED),” the address and phone number of their detective agency, and a small picture of a winged basset wearing a deerstalker and a halo.

“Course, that's just my cards,” Hopkirk explained. “Jeff's – that's Mr. Randall's – cards just have his name on them, and the dog doesn't have wings or a halo. Mine didn't, either, until the day an irate criminal flattened me on the crosswalk.”

Bodie and Doyle grinned, and reached into their back pockets to display their wallets, showing their picture I.D.s and badges. The major difference between the phantom wallets and the ones they had carried whilst alive was the notation “(DECEASED)” beside each man's name (a difference both had numbly noted as they had stood in the alley watching grim-faced CI5 men load their corpses into the ambulance). Doyle's photo now showed the bullet hole in his forehead. To William Andrew Phillip Bodie's delight, the three Christian names his sadistic parents had saddled him with at his christening had disappeared from his I.D.; he was now simply identified as “Bodie.”

“Ah, CI5! You're special services!” Hopkirk said pleasantly. “Were special services, rather,” he amended, taking in Doyle's ghastly appearance. “Well now, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Bodie, won't you come in and make yourselves welcome?”

The agents looked at each other and shrugged, and followed Hopkirk back through the closed door into the office of Randall and Hopkirk (the name “Hopkirk” on the opaque glass half of the door had a stripe of black tape through the name, and under it was the word “Deceased”) Private Detective Agency. The place looked lived-in, and a teapot was resting on the desk.

“Mr. Randall is researching family records for a case today,” Hopkirk explained. “He shan't be back till after noon.” He walked over to the desk. “Tea, either of you?” he asked politely.

Bodie snorted. “Pull the other one, mate. We weren't killed yesterday, you know.”

Hopkirk looked perplexed. “What do you mean? You don't want any tea?”

“We can't eat,” Doyle explained. “Can you?” Though he wasn't hungry, Doyle was wistful at having only the memory of the earthly delights of beer, prawn curry, spaghetti – even a Coke would have been nice. Maybe Hopkirk could eat, the lucky bastard...

“Of course not! I'm dead!” Hopkirk leaned over the teapot and sniffed luxuriously. His eyes widened and he looked at his two guests. “You mean no one told you...”

The light broke in Doyle's mind – and he could see Bodie's mind taking the leap too. “Oh, the smell of food!” he exclaimed.

“Of course!” Hopkirk looked indignant. “To think I'd play a trick on a guest...You mean you've been dead for six months and no one told you...”

“We haven't seen anyone since we've been killed!” Bodie said sharply. “Well, not till recently. We've been busy.”

“Oh, Bodie, of course!” Doyle began laughing. “No wonder! What with everyone having bits and pieces in the squad room and the rest room, we never noticed we were living off the smell of everyone's dinners!” He got up from his midair squat and walked to the relieved Hopkirk. “Come to think of it, I will have a spot of tea with you, Mr. Hopkirk.” He leaned over the teapot and inhaled. A look of bliss spread over his features. “Bodie, come have some Earl Grey.”

The big ex-soldier walked over and sniffed. He smiled, and drew in a huge noseful of the fragrant steam. “Ta very much. It's been too long.”

After tea, when everyone was seated – Hopkirk, like Bodie, preferring the physical prop of a chair – the man in the white suit asked, “Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you? Mind you, we don't usually deal with the deceased; private detectives for the living, that's us. But I do what I can if I'm approached by a fellow ghost who requires my professional services. So, how can we help you? Trying to find your murderers? Need to let loved ones know the location of important papers?”

“No, nothing like that. What we'd like is some information from you, Mr. Hopkirk,” Doyle said. “We've been looking for other ghosts. This is an assignment.”

“Yes, you both mentioned being busy since your untimely demises.” Hopkirk smiled. “Still with CI5, aren't you? And you have a living contact. Oh, you needn't look so surprised – I am a private detective, you know,” he said somewhat huffily. “The fact that you still have your badges despite your change in status tell me you are still active in your previous profession. And I can speak from experience on the importance of having a living contact. No one else can see or hear you, am I correct?”

“Not quite,” Bodie said. “We can be heard by other people, if we want 'em to – but it takes a lot of effort, very late at night, to be seen by anyone for a few seconds." Poor Murphy. "So we don't bother most of the time. Our contact doesn't need to see us to deal with us."

“We've been compiling information about manifestations, contacting a number of ghosts.” Doyle pulled a long white sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. On it was inscribed a list, naming each spirit encountered, the location, the spirit's activity or lack thereof, date of death when known, and the characteristics of the manifestation. Acquiring writing materials was a trick that Thomas More had taught him. It had been difficult, envisioning the “ghost” of a regular sheet of paper, grasping it and pulling it away intact – like peeling the scum off a cup of cocoa. Bodie was aching and Doyle's face was dripping blood from his exertions before they'd gotten a whole clean sheet to write on. But the pen was easier, and once both were in Doyle's possession they stayed where they were, as tangible and real as regular paper and pen had been in his life.

Hopkirk leaned forward to look at Ray's list, hands on knees. “Interesting. I don't believe any spirits I've contacted have ever attempted a study of their own phenomenology. I've seen a few strange manifestations myself. I could tell you about them.”

“Great,” Bodie said enthusiastically.

“We'd also like the particulars of your own manifestation,” Doyle said, pulling the pen out of his bullet-hole – as good a place to stash it as any – and reading off the list. “Thomas More can't be seen or heard by anyone alive, and I don't think Anne Boleyn even knows there are other ghosts about. We think every bleeding timekeeper Big Ben's ever had is still there – 's a regular clockmaker's convention in there, gossiping and making rude comments about digital watches. Dead boring – we left pretty quick. Alice Skeffington's the only ghost we saw in the Palace – fussy old bird, still trying to do up the beds; she told both of us to run along and fetch some more firewood for His Majesty King Edward's bedroom. Stig Matthews – “

“An old drunk hanging around a horrible East End pub,” Bodie clarified. “Froze to death in 1952 when he got lost coming home. No one shed a tear for him, and now he just sits with the drunks and feeds off their fumes.”

“Right, the guy who swore he sees Jacob Marley every Christmas Eve,” Doyle snorted. “A ghost seeing hallucinations.”

“Oh, I've seen Jacob fly by a few Yuletides myself,” Hopkirk said matter-of-factly. “He's quite real, poor bloke – wailing his heart out and beating his cash boxes together. They say he had a real living contact once, but now he can't be seen or heard by anyone living. Doesn't seem to notice any other ghosts. Sounds rather like Anne Boleyn's manifestation. Only appears the anniversary of his death, though.”

Bodie and Doyle looked at each other. “Don't suppose...?” Doyle started.

“Charles Dickens wrote a lot of real people into his books, Ray,” Bodie finished. “Could have been a living contact for a ghost, couldn't he?”

“And now Dickens is dead, and he has no living contact,” Doyle finished. “'Poor bloke' is right.” He shook his head, and added Jacob Marley to the list of spirits, under “Hearsay,” with the testaments from the two ghosts. Doyle looked deeply disturbed, and Bodie wanted to ask him about it – after they'd left Hopkirk.

“Nothing in St. Paul's. Nothing in Parliament. Nothing in Whitehall,” Doyle read down the list. “Figure 'cause the first's a church, and the other two – well, politics is such a transitory thing. Wouldn't do any good to hang around watching new laws get made.”

“Don't forget the big surprise, Doyle,” Bodie prompted.

“Oh yeah.” Ray lowered the list. “No one in the cemetaries! Not one bleedin' apparition. That's what really floored us.”

“Well, you didn't hang about your own gravestones when you got shot, did you?” Hopkirk said tartly. “Nor did I after my funeral was over. Once all the odds and ends of laying one to rest are over, you're free to go. Don't want to spend it watching other people's funerals, do you?”

Bodie nodded. “Yeah, couldn't get out of that boneyard fast enough once they'd done the final Amen over us both.”

“And then I said to Bodie, 'let's go scare the crap out of the Cow.'“ Doyle nodded too, things becoming clear. “Guess it's true about graves being for the living to cry over, not for the dead to rest in peace.”

“You don't look very peaceful, either of you.” Hopkirk looked pointedly at Ray's head wound. “You certainly didn't die peacefully.”

“Ambush in an alley. Shootout. Now every time I get worked up, this bloody hole in my skull bleeds all over me.” Doyle gave his partner a bad look. “Bodie's the lucky bastard. One slug in the heart and he's walking through walls. I was the one did the Butch Cassidy impression.”

Hopkirk nodded sympathetically. “I've seen others died of everything from a bad tin of salmon to cancer. There's no good way to die. Only varying degrees of bad to worse. I was hit-and-run by a gangster myself; took a few minutes to expire, and I was in pain that whole time. Horrible.” He shuddered. “Poor Jenny – that's my widow – had to identify me in the morgue, and I couldn't hold her when she started crying.” He shook his head sadly. Then he smiled a little. “I'm glad Jeff was there with her – they held each other. He said all the things I wished I could tell her. That's when I knew Jenny'd be all right.”

“'S what partners are for,” Doyle said softly, his rancor gone again. He remembered leaving a grave on crutches, every step taken in pain, his soul at the bottom of the sky – and there beside him was Bodie, blithely rolling one joke after another about how women went for men on sticks; reminding him that he was not alone. He thought of Thomas More and John Fisher. “They look out for each other, and not even death can stop it.” He jerked his head in Bodie's direction. “This big lout here kept me from dying once before, he and my boss. They were in my dreams while I was in surgery, telling me not to give up.” He didn't acknowledge Bodie's startled glance in his direction. He'd never told Bodie about the disturbing visions he'd had when Mayli had shot him. He knew Bodie would have turned it into jokes, to chase the shadows away from both of them. This was one experience he'd wanted kept in the shadows.

“So, Marty, d'ye ever let Jenny know about you?” Bodie asked, to take out the heaviness of the emotions traveling between them all. “Have your mate Jeff tell her about you?”

“To what end, Mr. Bodie?” Hopkirk asked. “I'm dead. She can't see or hear me – only my contact can. Jenny's done with her grieving for me, and I'm not about to reawaken her pain. If she knew, maybe thought I was looking over her shoulder all the time, she wouldn't feel free to go on with her life, find someone else.” He grinned a little wistfully. “I've been trying to get Jeff interested in her – without telling him direct, of course.”

“Of course.” Doyle grinned, cheerful again. Bodie beamed.

“You know, letting him know she's alive, he's still alive, they both liked me a lot – got that much in common. Take her out to dinner a few times, go see a film, and let nature take its course.” Hopkirk snorted. “Probably thinks he'd be betraying me or some such nonsense. I'd much rather see Jenny happy again, and not alone if she doesn't want to be.” He sighed. “Keep forgetting how strange the living can be about death.”

All three were still talking when the door opened and a man emerged – dark-haired, blue-eyed, medium height. Hopkirk stood and smiled. “Ah, Jeff! Find anything useful today?”

“A thing or two, Marty,” Jeff Randall said, and walked through Bodie on his way to the teapot muttering, “Probably cold by now...”

“Hey, watch where you're going!” Bodie yelped.

Randall stopped and whirled around. “Who said that?” he snapped. “Marty, do you have guests in?”

“Oh, just two, Jeff,” Marty hastily said. “Sorry about that. Mr. Doyle, Mr. Bodie, my partner, Jeff Randall. Jeff, these are Agents Doyle and Bodie from CI5. Deceased.”

“Gentlemen.” Randall nodded his head in the directions Hopkirk had indicated. “Forgive me, Mr. – “

“Bodie,” the ex-soldier offered.

“Bodie. Did I by any chance walk through you? I'm dreadfully sorry.”

“No hard feelings,” Bodie said coolly. “Occupational hazard of being a stiff.”

“Just thought you could see us, from what we've heard about you from Mr. Hopkirk,” Doyle added, and saw Randall start at the new voice.

“Afraid not, Mr., ah, Doyle. I'm only able to see and hear my partner.” Jeff busied himself with the tea things. “I take it that other living people can hear you also?”

“In one, mate,” Bodie said, more cheerily. “Comes in handy in our line of work.”

“Yes, CI5 does good work. I went to George Cowley for help in tracking down Marty's murderers six years ago. Very impressed by him.” Jeff turned off the kettle and poured the steaming water into the teapot. “I take it he's your living contact? And if I see Mr. Cowley, I haven't seen or heard either of you, correct?”

Doyle burst out in incredulous laughter. “Thought of joining Scotland Yard, Mr. Randall?” He glanced at Bodie's pleasant look, and knew his partner's state of mind to be his own. It was good to talk to another living person besides Cowley man-to-man, and not apparition-to-terrified-mortal.

“Well, stands to reason,” Hopkirk said blithely. “Nice quiet citizens don't fancy the idea of their defenders seeing goblins and ghosties, do they? Nor would Whitehall.”

“Those dreadful tabloids, interfering with one's work,” Jeff said, pouring a single mug full and leaving the lid off the pot. “Marty tells me ghosts like the smell of food now and then. Would you care for some tea? Biscuits?”

“Wouldn't say no to some bickies,” Bodie said. “Hopkirk let us have a go at your teapot already.”

“Here on business, or a social call?” Randall brought over a tray, smiling indulgently. “Marty's become something of a social hound now that he's deceased, and any ghost in the vicinity gets invited over.”

“Jeff,” Marty complained, but Bodie and Doyle knew that tone well from their own banter. The men were obviously very good friends.

“A little of both, Mr. Randall.” Doyle explained the purpose of their visit while the one living man in the room nodded thoughtfully.

“Odd. Not everybody becomes a ghost, for some reason.” Randall shook his head. “So many people die every day, you'd think there'd be more.”

“Thomas More hypothesized that a ghost was someone with an unfinished task,” Doyle said. “And he's been in Heaven, so we know that option's available. Wouldn't talk about it, though. Maybe he can't. Hell – ? 'Salways been my explanation for why Bodie and I didn't get the pleasure of taking on the four pricks that killed us, the ones I shot – they weren't anywhere to be found!”

“That might explain Jacob Marley's absence except at his deathdate,” Hopkirk said. “One night he's free to roam and regret, maybe part of his punishment.”

“Good thought,” Ray said, and scribbled that down under “Theories.” “This'll be our first Christmas dead, Bodie. Shall we keep an eye peeled for Marley? We could try asking him in person.”

“Christmas Eve?” Bodie said, incredulous. “We could be making the rounds of the parties and taking in the do at the Palace, and you want us on a bloody stakeout on Christmas Eve?”

“We're on assignment, Bodie,” Doyle reminded his partner. “Always next year, the year after that, the next 200 years...”

“Got a point,” Bodie said grudgingly. “Stakeout it is. We'll pull out a copy of _Christmas Carol_ in the Library after hours and find out what part of London it's set in.”

“You two can turn pages? Influence matter?” Randall said, interested.

“Yes, they can,” Hopkirk said. He sounded wistful.

“If we concentrate very, very hard,” Bodie said.

“And it is bloody hard work for us,” Doyle said; he knew how the ghost felt. “Ache all over afterwards, and I bleed like a stuck pig.” He waved a hand at his forehead.

“You're still lucky,” Marty said unhappily. “I've been trying for six years. All I can do is warn Jeff, or offer advice, or scout things.”

“Marty, I've never faulted you just because you couldn't lend a hand when I've been beaten up,” Jeff said, his voice softening as he spoke to his friend. “You're a ghost – I know you're unable to help me in a fight. And you know I'm very grateful for all you do, and for still being here to be my friend. That means a lot to me, Marty.”

“I know.” The tone indicated that this was an old topic between the two men. “But I still feel rotten when it happens.”

The forlorn look on Marty's face, the bleak sound of his voice, spoke volumes to two men who had had a near-telepathic rapport while alive, one that had only increased with their change in status. They sensed that same link between Randall and Hopkirk, the link that death itself could not sever. They knew, at that revelatory moment, that if only one of them had died in the firefight, his ghost would have appeared to the living partner the way Hopkirk appeared to Randall; seen and heard, dead but never parted.

Bodie and Doyle could not imagine being separated now. And a man helpless to protect his partner in a dangerous moment was a man who felt useless, like a traitor. But what could be done?

“Suppose we hang about here and teach you?” Bodie asked offhandedly, as if he didn't care what the answer was.

Hopkirk and Doyle stared at Bodie. Randall stared where Bodie's voice had come from.

“Bodie, we don't know if it can even be taught!” Doyle exclaimed. But he smiled. Typical Bodie, a simple solution elegant in its simplicity.

“Plenty of time after our six months are up,” Bodie said smoothly. “And it's worth the try, innit? Maybe that's why we're ghosts, Doyle, instead of off in Heaven or Hell or running around with our heads off like Anne. Maybe we're to teach other ghosts how to be seen when they want to be, heard when they want to be, influence matter when they want to.

“Ray, think of it!” Bodie grabbed Doyle by the arms. “Ever wondered why we're the only ghosts we've met that can do all that stuff? And you can levitate and I can't, and I can hear things that you can't.” His eyes gleamed with the mischevious look. “Maybe this is our unfulfilled task that Thomas More was talking about. We're here to recruit for CI5!”

Hopkirk had a hungry look in his own eyes. “You think you could really teach me how to touch? Why, that could make all the difference, Jeff!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn't feel so sick and helpless when you got attacked – And I know lots of ghosts round Town – “ He was prattling now, full of the idea. “Oh, this is wonderful!”

“This might be the thing to knock Annie out of her march, too, Bodie,” Doyle said slowly, the idea taking fire. He flashed his ugly grin of pure delight at his partner. “Never thought of us as Macklin and Towser, but you're right, we've got all that between us – maybe we can teach others!”

“But why you two especially?” Randall wondered aloud while his phantom partner waxed rhapsodic with the two invisible voices. “What's so special about you two?”

“We're CI5, mate!” Bodie snapped jauntily. “Cowley's best team!”

“Yes, and unfortunately Bodie's the brains and the looks of the team right now.” Doyle's eyes lit up with pleasure. “But if we can get Thomas More to join us – or better yet, hold it at the Tower? And if we do that, maybe he can teach us how to send letters or messages to other ghosts.”

“Back to the Tower...” The eager look on Bodie's face was identical to Doyle's. Both had been extremely reluctant to leave More, his font of stories and his wealth of information.

“I can round up people for your first class,” Hopkirk said enthusiastically. “And me too.” He turned to Randall. “What do you say, Jeff? Mind being on your own for a while?”

“Not just yet, Hopkirk,” Bodie butted in. “Have a job of our own to finish before starting class. But once we've reported to Cowley and told him our new plans, we'll send word.”

“And I still want to keep an eye peeled for Jacob Marley,” Doyle reminded his partner. “That's in our six-month period, so we can finish that off with the other.” He grinned and thumped Bodie's chest, right over the bullet hole. “The Cow told us to report to him if we decided to do something with our deaths besides play pranks on Murph and the others, and I think we've got it! I've got a sneaking feeling he'll be relieved to have seen the backs of us for a while.”

“Tell you what, mate,” Bodie said to the excited Hopkirk. “We'll come straight back here when our six months are up, and we'll practise on you for a bit. See if we can teach you to pick up that bloody teapot or something. If it works, and we can teach you, we can try making a go of it. What do you think, Ray?” His partner's enthusiastic nod was his answer.

“May I help in any way?” Randall asked, looking nearly as eager as Hopkirk at the idea.

“How'd you like to be a living contact for us too?” Doyle asked. “In return, we can lend you a hand with a bit of detective work now and then. For now, though, Bodie and I have our work cut out. We'll finish that before we promise anything.” He grinned. “And if you happen to lay in any Jasmine or China Green...”

“Deal,” Jeff said, smiling.

***

On 23 March Cowley was studying the files on a suspected government infiltrator when a discreetly cleared throat caught his attention. There was no one in the office.

“Seven months and ten days,” he said gruffly. “I was expecting both of you in February. This is the first anniversary of your deaths, you know. Are congratulations appropriate?”

“It's a long story, sir,” Bodie said. “Get comfortable.”

“And we've got something to tell you,” Doyle added. “We've got an idea of what to do with ourselves.”

Just then Cowley's pen floated out of its desk holder. “Bodie! Doyle! Stop that at once!” he snapped.

The pen dropped onto the desk. “Sorry, Mr. Cowley,” a new voice said hastily. “That was me. Just practising.”

Cowley stared into space, his mouth hanging open, as Bodie said grandly, “Like you to meet someone, sir. Marty Hopkirk, this is George Cowley.”

 

THE END

(Not bloody likely, mate)

**Author's Note:**

> First appeared in one of Mystery Frank's Professionals zines in the early 1990s. The title is an allusion to a then-famous tear-jerker Pros death story called "Nobody Waves Goodbye."


End file.
